Staying at the hostel when you’re (way) past your twenties? Up until a couple of months ago, I would have said „no way“. But here I am, at the Hereda Surf Hostel at Praia da Macumba, just a couple of kilometers outside of Rio. And it’s really not that bad. The opposite, actually. Sure, those pubic hairs from some stranger on my soap are not that cool. And it would be nice, if the sponge I’m supposed to wash my dishes with wasn’t fuller of life than the Copacabana beach on a sunday. But beside that, there is many advantages to staying at a hostel.

Obviously, there’s the financial aspect. But then it’s also great to meet lots of people and to talk about surfing. We’ve finally met the first other international tourists since we got to Brazil. Three Australians (among them the only other woman at the hostel), who are doing more or less the same trip as us, but the other way around. They’ve just flown in from Colombia before carnival and are now traveling down south. So we can exchange some travel tipps.

But the other guests are just as intriguing. For instance, there’s this ever-smoking old guy. I have no clue how he managed to even get that old. Because all I ever saw him eating were those microwave burgers from the gas station (unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to use the microwave) and something long and square that’s supposed to be a hot dog sausage (at least, I think so…). And well, the rest of the time he just smokes. And then there’s the two boys of our host and ex pro surfer Angelo Hereda. Trust me, their cute appearance is very deceiving. They regularly beat each other up, it hurts just watching it. But then again, it’s still better than seeing the smaller one run around the house at full speed with his poor little guinea pig in one hand. My heart skipped several beats a couple of times!

It’s also great to be able to use a kitchen again. Not that either one of us suddenly enjoys cooking (I’m afraid that’s never gonna happen…). But nonetheless, we try sometimes. This way, we don’t have to spend a lot of money at the restaurant. And on top of that, it’s so much more sociable. On Saturday, we finally had our first churrasco (Brazilian BBQ). It’s tradition at the hostel. So we didn’t have to cook, it was all done for us. Well, you can’t really call it cooking. The Brazilian version of BBQ consists of nothing else but grilled meat. And some grilled bread, if you’re lucky. But it was delicious!

Viel Fleisch…

…und noch mehr Rauch

And last but not least, the hostel is incredibly close to the beach. We can even see the ocean from our room, so the daily surf check just got so much easier.
view from our room

Which brings me to the surf conditions. The first couple of days were quite small, but big enough to have some fun. Since Sunday, we’re getting some pretty big waves. Marcel is pretty relaxed about it and just goes for it. And he’s actually not doing too bad. It’s a different story with me. I do paddle out to the line up and try to catch waves. Lots of times, though, I get so scared looking down from the lip of the wave, I just freeze. So the first time we went out there when it was big, it took me almost 1,5 hours to finally take my first big wave. And that wasn’t so bad after all. Obviously, we don’t have any videos or photos of it, as usual…. Well, and I should mention that we’ve seen some of the most crowded line ups here ever (or, as our Australian friends said: „just like back home“). It’s also pretty normal to drop in on other people’s waves. So we’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff and quite a few crashes. Luckily, we got away unharmed so far.

Even more dangerous was our shopping trip to the biggest mall of Rio de Janeiro, though. On the way back to the hostel, we took the wrong bus and ended up in some quite scary area of downtown Rio. When I asked a lady if it was a safe area, she hesitated and then answered: «mais ou menos», more or less. Great! It turned out that hanging around in this lovely neighborhood waiting for a bus back wasn’t even the worst part about this trip. It got much worse once we were on the bus. For some reason, the bus driver drove like a madman. Maybe he just didn’t like the area either, or he was just plain crazy. But he drove at a speed, not breaking in any curves or at any crossing, even the native Cariocas started exchanging scared looks or even got off the bus. Believe me, I’ve never been so happy to touch solid ground again when we finally arrived back home shortly before 10pm.

After a whole week here in Recreio, we’re almost a bit sad to leave for Búzios. While we are looking forward to some more hygiene, we are gonna miss the people we met here and the awesome surf sessions we had.